R&B teen heartthrob matures into crooner

USHER

8701 Arista, $18.97

Raymond Usher opens his delayed follow-up to 1997's "My Way" with a sigh. Of "8701," his new album named for its release date, he says, "Man, it's been a long time coming."

No kidding. Usher has been one of the world's premiere R&B heartthrobs since his 1997 sophomore album went platinum six times over and plastered his comely visage on a million teenagers' walls. One tepid 1999 live album aside, there's been little recorded material since. But the grueling tour schedules and industry trip wires that delayed this

new album have also dealt Usher a backhanded favor: The extra time has allowed him to mature from teen dream to full-fledged crooner.

And he can croon, make no mistake. Usher is so smooth he all but slides from the grooves of "8701," every inch the serial seducer with an angel's face as he sips Chardonnay, flirts with street credibility and slips sugar to his oh-so-foxy admirers.

But smooth moves don't always translate into passion. Though the album opens on a promising note with the hit single "U Remind Me," an obsessive paean to one bad, bad girl, Usher reinstates a sense of icy control with "I Don't Know." Here, he and guest Sean "P. Diddy" Combs let the world know they're just out to party with "ghetto girls/ suburban girls/ international girls," offering a reminder that Usher isn't about to lose heart or shirt to some heartbreaking woman.

"Why don't we just chill/ Make it cold, cold sexy?" he purrs on "Twork It Out" as a female chorus moans approval. Usher is a calculated lover to the core, with carefully mapped seductions that are the antithesis of D'Angelo's spontaneous acts of aural ravishment. This chilliness has its downside: Though catchy (try to forget the chorus to "U Got It Bad"), most tracks on "8701" -- the torchy "Hottest Thing" and sinewy, bouncing "If I Want To" and "I Can't Let U Go" excepted -- are simply too slick to get tousled. Spates of rap-song on tracks like "U Don't Have to Call" sound strained: Cool, soft boys trying to sound hot and hard inevitably just sound rigid.

Yet for all his reserve, Usher is a sleek love machine with a nicely torqued voice. For devotees, "8701" was worth the wait: Even if it lacks a certain passion, it still makes for a pleasurable summer pastime, like floating in an endless turquoise swimming pool sipping Chardonnay from a straw.

-- Neva Chonin

ZEN GUERRILLA'S 'SUN' GIVES OFF HEAT

ZEN GUERRILLA

Shadows on the Sun Sub Pop, $14.97

A handful of years after the band first made the scene, San Francisco's Zen Guerrilla remains the town's woolliest live music experience. The group's bad- trip blues and hard, hard soul give off the intense sound and heat of a NASA launch from 20 paces.

The rare band that can howl about testifying and righteousness and sound perfectly natural doing so, Zen Guerrilla hasn't changed much of anything for its second Sub Pop album, fifth overall. There's a distinct Hendrix-y feel to "Staring Into Midnite," which means that guitarist Rich Millman is playing out of his head these days. And "Subway Transmission" is a freaky, lo-fi instrumental, which means that towering Marcus Durant gets at least a few minutes to rest his overtaxed vocal cords in forthcoming shows. He's still guaranteed to lose all control of his musculature at the mercy of the music though. -- James Sullivan